


The Butterfly Effect

by fairytalelovr



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Harrenhall AU, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-18 20:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16524011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytalelovr/pseuds/fairytalelovr
Summary: "In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state."Therefore, if before there were runaway lovers, furious hot-tempered brothers, mad kings, and rebellious lords, what if one single letter had been sent and received? How would that have affected the future of Westeros?





	The Butterfly Effect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toaquiprashippar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toaquiprashippar/gifts).



> Short, sweet stuff, but a birthday gift to my BFF and soul sister should have a happy ending right?

The minstrels were playing in a corner of the room, which was filled with lords and ladies and knights from all over the Seven Kingdoms. Spring had come and Lord Whent was hosting a Great Tourney at his seat of Harrenhall and gathered everyone who was anyone in Westeros. Ned stood next to his older brother, laughing and drinking with other northerners their age, but his eyes kept wondering off to the most beautiful lady he had ever seen.

Her hair was dark like a raven’s plumage, falling into silky curls and braids down her back. Her eyes were deep purple and they seemed alive with her laughter, enhanced by the purple dress she wore and the amethysts shining with the star-like diamonds on her silver necklace.

“Brother, you are staring too hard!” Brandon said, slapping Ned on the shoulders and startling him. “Though, I don’t blame you! That is a beauty!”

“That’s Lady Ashara Dayne,” Elbert said. “She is sister to the Sword of the Morning and Princess Elia’s lady.”

“A beauty with a lethal brother to protect her honour.” Brandon whistled. “Luckily you are just as honourable, little brother. Why don’t you invite her to dance?”

“I ah…” Ned hesitated. “I doubt she would like to be bothered.”

“She wouldn’t, except she has been looking back at you the whole night,” Ethan said.

Brandon rolled his eyes. “You’re helpless, Ned! Truly, all the luck I have with the ladies seems to have bypassed you completely!”

“That’s why he is the Quiet Wolf,” Ethan said and chuckled. “You are the wild one, Bran.”

“Come on, little brother, have courage!” Brandon prompted, but Ned didn’t move. “Fine.” He drained his horn of ale. “I’ve got your back, Ned.” And he walked away.

“Bran, no, wait!” Ned called, but Elbert and Ethan kept him back.

“Your big brother knows what’s best for you!” the heir to the Vale said.

Ned watched as Bran crossed the ballroom to where Lady Ashara stood with the Princess Elia and Prince Oberyn, his stomach in knots.

“Good evening, my lady, Your Graces,” Brandon greeted with a charming smile. “Lady Ashara, forgive my impertinence, but my little brother was wondering if you might concede him the great honour of a dance.”

“Too shy to come himself, was he?” Oberyn asked.

“Don’t be unkind, brother,” Elia said. “Ash, I have company. Don’t worry.”

Ashara then smiled, taking Brandon’s hand. “I would be delighted, my lord.”

Ned felt his heart fail a beat once he saw that she had accepted. He stumbled and blushed as Elbert and Ethan pushed him forward and it was with stiff legs that he reached the dance floor where Brandon was leading the lady.

“Lady Ashara Dayne, my brother, Lord Eddard Stark. Now dance and be merry!”

Brandon took his leave, laughing at his joke. Blushing, Ned offered his hand and she took it with a smile.

“I don’t remember seeing you in the lists, my lord,” Ashara said when she noticed he was indeed too shy.

“I didn’t take part in the tourney, my lady,” Ned managed to say, feeling his blood race in his veins with the feel of her under his hands.

“And why not?”

“Forgive me if you will find it insulting, my lady, but my lord father always taught us that tourneys are only playing at war.”

She smiled. “Well, I think your father’s thinking has merit, my lord. I won’t deny I enjoy a good sparring match, but there is certainly something brutishly unnecessary about jousting. It is indeed a spectacle with no warlike purpose.”

Ned twirled her in time with the music, a wide smile on his face.

From afar, Brandon, Elbert, and Ethan watched them.

“It seems Ned only needed to loosen up a bit,” Ethan said.

“Or rather he needed Brandon’s little push over the edge,” Elbert jested.

“Well, my lords, now that I have done my duty as a big brother,” Brandon said, “I will go search my own dancing partner.”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Ashara knew she shouldn’t be here, but at the moment she couldn’t care less. She went to where Ned was readying his saddle, startling him.

“I just wanted to say goodbye. One more time.” She smiled sadly.

“It will be a brief goodbye,” Ned said, holding her hand and stomping on the urge to pull her over his saddle and run away from everything that kept them apart. “I will speak with my father as soon as I arrive in Winterfell and ask him to arrange our marriage.”

“I will be anxiously waiting,” she said, squeezing his hand back, wishing she could do more. That they could spend only one more night under the stars.

“I will see you soon,” he promised.

“Come on, Ned!” Benjen yelled from his horse, a few feet away.

“Soon!” Ashara said, letting go of his hand and stepping back.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Ned had been very disappointed to receive Jon Arryn’s letter asking him to come to the Eyrie. He missed the man he thought of as a second father, of course, but it would delay his return to Winterfell and therefore his marriage. But there was nothing that could be done. So instead of following with Brandon, Benjen, and Lyanna north, he left east with Elbert.

They were at the feet of the mountains when he woke up startled with a hawk on his chest. The bird kept poking its own chest with its beak, so Ned took it as a clue and fumbled with the leather breastplate until he found the letter hidden inside. His heart raced when he saw the Dayne sigil.

 

_My beloved Ned,_

_I am so, so sorry. I hope you will understand that I never meant for this to happen like this, that the last thing I wanted was to trap you. I wished we could do things properly, if only so people would not sneer at our love and think of it as something dirty. But I am carrying your child, Ned. I need you to come to Dorne as quickly as you can. Not for me, because I do not care about myself. But because of our child. I want him or her to have a loving father and I know that, outside of my southern borders, people would snub our baby as a sinful creature._

_Love,_

_Ashara_

 

Ned was shocked — though once a moment passed and his brain regained the ability to think rationally, he knew it was not shocking. Ashara was carrying his child! Their child, a baby they had created with their love! He rummaged through his satchel for a quill, ink, and paper and wrote a message for his father and one for Jon Arryn.

“Elbert! Hey, Elbert!” he called, shaking his friend awake.

“What happened? Are we under attack?”

“No. But something has happened and I need to leave. I wrote two messages, one for my father and one for your uncle. Would you deliver his at the Eyrie and send the other to Winterfell?”

“Of course. But Ned, what is—”

“I am sorry, my friend, but I must go south with all haste. If I ride hard I can be out of the mountains and to the border today, so I will be clear of the mountain clans. I’ll send a message as soon as I arrive at Starfall.”

Elbert blinked in shock. “Gods in heavens! She… she sent for you? Is she…?”

“I need to go, my friend. Please, tell no one. And make my apologies to your uncle.”

Leaving the messages behind, Ned went to his horse and left quickly. He had a long journey ahead of him.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Ned had been unsurprised to discover, upon his arrival at Starfall, that his father had already sent a raven and was on his way to negotiate the wedding. Lord Dayne was, obviously, offended and sad, but satisfied that his daughter’s honour would be restored.

Knowing that time was of the essence, Lord Rickard had taken a ship on his journey south and arrived only a few days after Ned, who had had to cross nearly half the continent. He and Lord Dayne were locked in negotiations for a full day and then the wedding took place. And then, finally, after years away, Ned returned to Winterfell, a beautiful wife on his arm and their child growing in her womb.

But not everything was perfect. Brandon was getting irritable the closer his wedding day got, what made their interactions more and more complicated. And Lyanna was also not making things easier, refusing to accept her own betrothal. And if Ned already had little luck to persuade his beloved sister to accept his friend, his wife was not helping, insisting that Lyanna was allowed a voice just as they had.

And then they begun to argue as well, because Ashara insisted that Ned should take Lyanna’s side. And he was upset, because this wasn’t about sides. But, finally, he had to give in. Ashara’s argument had been that they had chosen to be together, so the least Ned could do is insist that their father hear Lyanna’s reasons as to why she refused to marry Robert Baratheon before condemning her to spend her life with a man she loathed. So even though Ned would like for his sister and best friend to be together, he owed it to his sister to make sure she had the same chance he had.

Rickard hadn’t been happy to have his second son questioning his choices. But then Ned had listed all of Lyanna’s reasons, had told his father how he had met Robert’s bastard daughter at the Vale, and the Lord of Winterfell finally wavered.

“Besides, Father, you know Lyanna. She is more stubborn than all of us. If she says she won’t marry Robert, I believe her. I truly, deeply believe she will get a satchel, go up on Winter, and leave everything behind so long as she has her freedom. If you force this betrothal on her, you _will_ lose her.”

“She is a Stark of Winterfell, Ned,” Rickard argued. “She must marry someone. She will be the lady of a keep!”

“Find her a husband she can respect at least, Father, rather than one that she hates. It _is_ your choice in the end, Father, we both know it, but I am just saying what I think will happen. Lyanna is not the sort to accept quietly.”

Rickard sighed but ultimately agreed. “I will tell Lord Baratheon that I need more time to think.”

“Do what you will, Father, but I know Lyanna won’t change her mind,” Ned said.

A few moons later, Ned volunteered to be the Stark in Winterfell while the others went to Riverrun for Brandon’s wedding, since Ashara was simply too heavily with child to travel. He was not in the least shocked when he received Benjen’s raven that Prince Rhaegar had attended the event, though without the Princess Elia — they had all seen his budding relationship with Lyanna at Harrenhall.

“Elia sent a rider in the night,” Ashara said. “She and Rhaegar are separating.”

Ned exhaled, already anticipating what was coming. His wife had mentioned how Rhaegar meant to unseat his father and this only heralded that war was brewing on the horizon. He only hoped that the removal of the threat of the betrothal with Robert Baratheon would keep Lyanna from doing something drastic, like running away and riding in a remote tower.

And it did. A few days later, Ned received a raven from his father, telling him to call their banners and prepare to march south as soon as Benjen arrived in Winterfell, because they were taking the capital for King Rhaegar. And so Ned went. King's Landing fell without any fight and the new king was carried on the shoulders of his people to the throne room — no one had come to fight for the Mad King. A lord or another might have, but then it had always seemed an impossible task when Rhaegar had drawn the North, the Vale, the Riverlands, the Westerlands, the Reach, and Dorne to his cause. And like that Aerys II was imprisoned in a set of apartments in Dragonstone and died of disgust a few years later, forgotten and hated.

In the mean time, Ned barely saw his soon-to-be good-brother upon the throne when he turned back North. When he finally burst through the gates of Winterfell, he was ushered to his chambers and staggered at the door.

“Come and say hello to our daughter, my love,” Ashara said, still exhausted and dishevelled from the birth.

Allyria was only eight moons old when her cousin Robb was born. Though Ned would always be a Northerner, Winterfell was Brandon’s so their move to the capital was organised. He would live beside his beloved sister, the new Queen Lyanna. After the coronation, Lord Rickard and Brandon returned to Winterfell and life in the capital returned to its new normal.

Several years later, Prince Jon, the Prince of Dragonstone, fell in love with his aunt, the Princess Daenerys. But that… well, that is another story.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed it!  
> As always, I always welcome and thrive in comments and kudos!


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